Words By
ALEX KHATCHADOURIAN
Photos By
KENNY INGLE
Scott Davenport still remembers getting a
call from his stepfather in 2013. A call that
abruptly changed his life.
“Bobby called me and said, ‘I have to teach you
how to run the bar.’ My exact words to him, no lie,
were, ‘I don’t want that little fucking dump,’ recalls
Davenport. That “little fucking dump” was The
Harbor Room, a now 50-year-old, triangle-shaped
bar, nestled on a busy corner in Playa Del Rey,
Harbor Room Owner Scott Davenport and with his daughter Bri and his bartenders
widely known for it’s exceptionally tiny square-
footage and heavy-handed pours.
“He goes, ‘Come on over. After you take a look
at the books, I think you will change your mind,’”
says Davenport with a smile on his face. “He was
right. I changed my mind the second I got a look at
the books. I said, ‘I’m retired. I’ll take the bar.’”
While the books likely looked pretty damn good
to get Davenport to leave his 35-year career as a
building engineer and position as Chief Engineer
managing over a million square feet of commercial
space in El Segundo, there was something else that
helped drive home the decision to say yes to taking
over the bar: family. Davenport, although blessed
with a sizable and close-knit family, also knows the
pain of loss – the passing of his father when he
was 12, the untimely and separate passing of both
his six-month old son and beloved wife, and the
unfortunate passing of his brother. He played both
mom and dad to his daughter Bri, while working
full-time and going to engineering school at night.
His family was there to help him through it all, or
“stress me out more,” as Davenport likes to joke.
So when his stepfather Robert “Bobby” Blye was
diagnosed with cancer, and both Bob and JoAnn,
Davenport’s mother, looked to pass the reins of
The Harbor Room to him, Davenport took the
opportunity to be there for his family.
From engineer to bar owner, Davenport spent
Scott Davenport
the next few years soaking up as much as he could
from Bob — everything from his penny-pinching
ways, to anticipating the unexpected situations that
arise when you manage and run a bar that’s housed
in a 102-year-old building. “When he eventually
handed me the key, he said, ‘You know what? Your
mother is going to be a handful. And don’t change
a damn thing because the way I do it, it works.
Good Luck,” Davenport recalls, with a chuckle.
The Local Lore of The Davenports and Blyes
Before there was Playa Provisions, there was
Long-time local and Harbor Room patron, Judy,
enjoying her signature Bailey’s and chocolate milk on ice.
La Marina Inn. A long-standing local watering-
hole, just steps from Toe’s Beach, La Marina Inn
played host to many swinging nights in the 70s
with its well-known piano bar and dimly lit dining
room. During that time, JoAnn Davenport [now
Blye] worked there as a waitress. One evening,
after a lengthy shift, she got home and made an
announcement, “Well, I bought The Harbor
Room.” Scott immediately started cracking up, as
he thought back to all the times he and his buddies
would sneak into The Harbor Room as little kids
and shoot rocks at the backs of the crotchety old
dudes bellied up to the bar. But Bob had a much
different reaction. “They fought for about two
months,” says Davenport. “I think the exact words
he had for her when he found out were, ‘Who is
going to run that little place? You or me?’”
JoAnn had raised three boys on her own and
was tired of waiting tables. She worked tirelessly
to save up as much money as she could. She took
what she saved and a small loan from her mother,
and paid for The Harbor Room in all cash. Two
owners preceded JoAnn at The Harbor Room —
both women, both who surprisingly passed away in
the actual bar; one in the doorway and one behind
the bar. It was only a matter of time before the
locals started placing bets on JoAnn’s destiny after
she bought the place.
“When she found out that the whole town was
betting against her, she knew she had to prove them
wrong,” says Davenport.
It was a slow start. Money was barely trickling
in and the bar’s small confines had become overrun
by bikers, their girlfriends, and their unending
appetite for doing coke and finessing free drinks.
Although Bob hadn’t fully bought into JoAnn’s
idea of owning and running a bar, he had recently
lost his job and decided that he was going to go
down to the bar and see what was going on. “Bob
came down here, nobody knew who he was, and
he stood here watching the bartenders give away
booze to the rowdy bikers,” says Davenport. “He
fired everyone that night. He went out and got two
old bartenders from La Marina Inn: Mexican Dave
and Old Steve. Dave was with my parents for 28
years and Steve was with them for 48 years. There’s
also Robert Lepore, who bartended for 18 years,
and good ol’ Loretta ‘Lola’ who has been at The
Harbor Room for 28 years and is like an older sister
to me. She’ll always have a job here.”It wasn’t long
before The Harbor Room started
making money. “The second they cleaned it up
and brought in the local bartenders, they started
getting the local clientele in,” says Davenport.
“Bobby would work behind the bar on the really
slow nights, and he is the one that really helped
turn it around. We would not have anything we
have, if it wasn’t for Bobby.”
While Joann’s decision to purchase The Harbor
Room may have seemed like a lousy investment at
the time, the quaint little bar has arguably only
sustained the last fifty years because she was the
one who bought it. JoAnn, a local to Playa Del
Rey, knew the people, the community, and the area
better than anyone. She raised three boys by the
“duck pond”, more widely known now as the Del
Rey Lagoon, when Mo’s was a Bank of America,
there were horse stables a few feet from Culver
Boulevard, and her extended family owned the
entire building that Tanner’s Coffee resides in. She
earned the nickname Miss Kitty for being one sassy
and opinionated motherfucker, and at 96, still
watches the footage from the cameras inside the bar,
always willing to provide her opinion: “Why is
that damn dog in there?”
Like JoAnn, Scott has also played the main
character of many memories that make up South
Bay lore, like playfully naming “The Jungle” with
his friend Paul Moody back in the 60s, only for it
to stick, and now be found on Google Maps as an
actual destination. Or being an early shortboarder
in California, after his brother and friend stripped
a longboard down to 6 feet with a single fin, which
he would paddle across the duck pond and surf
in Ballona Creek. Or proudly being one of the
original Hermosa Pier Rats. “You could not surf
the breakwater to 22nd street in Hermosa without
talking to my buddies and I first,” says Davenport.
Or casually surfing breakwater at 25 plus, as a kid,
with Mike Purpus.
It’s no wonder that when Bob was diagnosed with
cancer, he and JoAnn looked to Scott to continue
The Harbor Room legacy, one built on the local
charisma and the family-first spirit they fostered
over decades with their loyal clientele.
A New (but still kind of the same) Era
An older woman named Judy sits at the first stool
on the west end of the bar. She’s sporting a brand
new dye job with color likeness to that of Lucille
Ball. She casually takes sips from her signature order
of chocolate milk and Bailey’s on ice, while gently
giggling at the woman dancing next to her. That’s
Tanya, she loves coming to The Harbor Room to
drink white wine and take over the jukebox.
“The old guys tap their toes because they’re
slightly annoyed,” says Tanya, with a smirk. “But
they don’t really mind, or else they’ll leave.”
She quickly turns around to belt out the lyrics to
Toni Basil’s 1982 hit “Mickey,” almost directly in
the ear of the older man sitting next to her. He seems
unfazed, scrolling on his phone, and intermittently
looking up at the TV. The bartender, Rob, stands
at nothing less than 6’7, which is no small feat
in this itty bitty bar with only seven barstools.
He regularly joins Tanya in singing the chorus to
each song she puts on, while mixing drinks. A few
friends sitting at the high-tops along the exterior of
the bar spontaneously erupt in yelling, “We missed
you Wednesday!” as one of their other friends walks
up and pours herself a beer from their pitcher.
The early Friday evening scene couldn’t be more
indicative of what places like The Harbor Room
stand for in the constant corporate-washing of
businesses in hyper-local communities. It’s much
more than just a bar. It’s a living archive of the South
Bay neighborhoods like Playa Del Rey, and local
families like the Davenports and Blyes. It’s a place
where generations gather, memories accumulate,
and South Bay identity persists.
Very little has changed at The Harbor Room
over the last 50 years. Sure, with Scott at the helm
for the last ten, they’ve upgraded to a proper POS
system (the older-timers will still hit the ATM so
they can use cash), a digital jukebox, a few outdoor
hightops along the sidewalk, some indoor tables,
and new plumbing. They’re even dog friendly (I
watched a woman pour a small amount of beer
from her bottle into a portable dog bowl for her
four-legged companion). Even with the topical
upgrades, Scott prides himself on running the place
exactly like Bob would have. Photos of relatives,
chosen family, and loyal patrons have always lined
the limited wall space of the cozy little space, and
Scott is proud to add to the artifacts of The Harbor
Room’s storied past. A picture of Bob happily
standing amongst friends on the golf course hangs
right below a photo of Scott and JoAnn in front
of the bar, right after they were allowed to re-open
during Covid. A coveted pair of trunks worn by
the infamous Greg “The Bull” Knoll when he first
surfed Waimea in ‘52 are framed and fastened to
the wall in an impossible-to-remove fashion (they
are one of Scott’s most prized posessions). And a
photo of Scott, JoAnn, and the rest of the family,
standing proudly on Scott’s boat, aptly named
“Miss Kitty.” They are all mementos of a family
that set out to build a business and in the process
grew a community.
“Everyone respects this place because of
my parents. I have done a very little bit,” says
Davenport. “This is 50 years of my parents. I give
all credit to them.”